European Kingdoms

Ancient Italian Peninsula

Morgetes
(Italics)

The so-called West
Indo-European
tribes arrived at the eastern edge of Central Europe around 2500 BC.
Their northern group became the
proto-Celts of the
Urnfield culture while the southern group seemingly migrated
westwards and southwards, reaching Illyria and northern
Italy.
Already divided further into semi-isolated tribes, they became more
civilised in habits and technologies due to contact with southern
Greeks and
Etruscans.
In the eleventh to eighth centuries BC, some of those groups in
Illyria crossed by sea into the Italian peninsula and settled along
the south-eastern coast. Those in the north Italian piedmont gradually
migrated southwards to occupy much of the rest of eastern and central
Italy. These tribes all formed part of a general group called Italics.

The Morgetes were a group of Italics who, during the Iron Age, were
located in the back half of the 'toe' of Italy, in the section to
the north-east of the Greek colony of Hipponium and perhaps as far
north as Sybaris. With a tribal capital at Morgantium, they were
neighboured to the north by the
Chones and
Brutii, to the west by
the Itali, and along the
coastline on both sides by various Greek colonies of Magna Graecia.
The Oscan-Umbrian group of which the Morgetes were part are largely
accepted as being Indo-Europeans (perhaps proto-Celts) who migrated
into the peninsula from the north. Their early history is unknown,
but they are distinguished by ancient writers as being a sub-division
of the Oenotri, along
with the Chones and Itali. All four groups may have had an Illyrian
or Greek origin, at least in part, probably with a large degree of
intermixing with earlier, pre-Indo-European people in Italy.

Their language is largely unknown, but it may have been related to the
Oscan-Umbrian group of Indo-European languages (P-Italic), which were
widely spoken in Iron Age Italy before the rise to dominance of Latin
(Latin itself was a slightly more distantly related language, coming
from the Indo-European Latino-Faliscan group, or Q-Italic). The language
of the Siculi influenced the
Greeks on Sicily, and
from there fed back into Greece itself and then into Latin. Similarities
suggest that Siculi and Latin were related languages, since the former
contained both words and grammatical forms which belonged to Latin but
which were not common to either it or Greek.

The Morgetes left no inscriptions or other materials which would allow
scholars to classify their language group. Ancient writers persisted in
ascribing them with a Grecian origin, which was mixed fairly equally
with the native barbarians amongst whom they settled when they arrived
in Italy. The possible Grecian origin would link them to the
Pelasgians, or instead
make them cousins of the Illyrian tribes in south-eastern Italy,
principally the Iapyges.

(Additional information by Edward Dawson, and from Researches into
the Physical History of Mankind, Vol 3, Issue 1, James Cowles Prichard,
and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, Ed William Smith,
and The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the
Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley,
Anthony A Barrett.)

In his work, Politics, Aristotle names a king of Oenetria called
Italus who is the successor to King Oenotrus himself. Oenetria at this
time is taken to refer to the 'toe' of the Italian 'boot, an area which
is known today as Calabria. Aristotle claims that the
Oenotri of this region had
changed their name to the Itali.
It is this name that is used by later Greek settlers to refer to the entire
land, but this origin story is probably sheer invention. Thucydides claims
that Italus is a king of the Siculi,
while after diligent research Dionysius concludes that the Itali and Siculi
are one people. King Morges is claimed as the successor to Italus, and
Siculus the successor to Morges, which seems to illustrate the belief
that the Itali, Morgetes, Oenotri, and Siculi have a shared heritage.

The modern Sila National Park would have fallen within the
territory of the Morgetes, located as they were in the back
half of the 'toe' of Italy, to the north-east of the Greek
colony of Hipponium and perhaps as far north as Sybaris

7th century BC

Greek colonies along the coastal region of the 'toe' of Italy include Hipponium
(modern Vibo Valentia) on the Gulf of Terina, Terina itself to the north (near
modern Lamezia terme), Corsentia (modern Cosenza), which lies inland, probably
on the northern border of Morgetes territory, and Petelia (modern Strongoli),
Croton (modern Crotone), and Scylletium (near modern Catanzaro) on the eastern
coastline, plus half a dozen more minor colonies. As they begin to interact
with the Italic natives, they start using the name of the neighbouring
Itali as a reference to the entire
region.

411 BC

Writing at this time, the reliable Greek historian Thucydides of Alimos
(close to
Athens),
mentions the Siculi. He says
that groups of Siculi still occupy the Italian mainland in his time. It
is possible, given their close links in the past with the
Itali (and therefore their close
cousins the Morgetes), that both peoples could be Siculi in all but name.
Strabo claims that the Morgetes join the fortunes of their cousins, the
Siculi, and migrate to Sicily
where they intermarry with and are absorbed by the Siculi.

Either way, the Morgetes are very poorly documented and receive no further
mention after Thucydides. The suggestion is either that they have indeed
been absorbed by another Italic people, or that they have always been a
branch of the Siculi (those that had remained on the Italian mainland),
and that they now complete the migration to join their relatives on
Sicily. Thereafter they share the same fate as the rest of the Siculi.